Erick Mead

Yes, we do. "Spirit of the Demon Snake" and "the Spirit of Bees" are his poetical images -- but much more than that (and like most poetical images) they are actually concrete verbal descriptions of physical action, and as it happens, in these very two exercises.

Most people pull or push with joint leverage, which, among other things is very inefficient action, because (among other things) the limb rotations oppose one another discontinuously and eat up energy, and the leverage creates a destabilizing shear at the joint fulcrum that must be countered muscularly-- eating up yet more energy. Hence a snatch is easier than a curl.

The more efficient actions are cutting and its inverse, gathering or reaping, which 1) use continuous limb rotations, 2) use shear directly instead of leverage. I could go into more detail, but ...

Suffice it to say that rotations and vibration are the same things, mechanically. When you do the "rubber pencil" trick your eye believes the rigid pencil to be bending. In fact your eye is tracking the real moving center of rotation as it translates along the rigid body.

Funakogi undo is learning to use the same principle with your whole body, initiating large scale rotations through the body smoothly and concentrating them at the end of each cycle, and recovering likewise. Sayo undo is basically a variation doing the same thing but sideways. Ude furi undo another geometric variation. So is Zengo undo, Happo undo etc. etc. etc.

Furitama is the "spirit of bees" done right at ~10 Hz -- the resonance frequency of the human body. You can confirm this independently by counting the cycles when you feel your heels bouncing. It is the thing that happens in your opponent as you concentrate the large scale rotations at the end of each cyle in applying the principle in funakogi undo, and it is also the "bone rattling" aspect of properly applied atemi. Resonance is the most energy-efficient destructive form of applied dynamic stress that exists.

Tekubifuri is the same, shaking the body at a certain rhythm to gain kinesthetic recognition an sensitivity to it --.as is the "beat ourselves up" warm up exercise, because a sharp strike cause the body to "ring" briefly at its resonance frequency, an the better connected you become the more you feel that throughout the body. The more you feel it the more you can adapt to it, and control it. Most of that control does not come consciously.

Rotation and potential for rotations (moment) are also equivalent. Instead of pushing or pulling in isolation -- the principles that these exercises teach is rotation and potential rotation - the top of the rotation goes forward -- the bottom of the rotation goes backward (or vice versa) pushing and pulling simultaneusly (technically called "shear") ( in-yo ho, kokyu ho -- what have you). When we add in whole-body torques as in Zengo, ude furi, or happo undo we get whole body torsional shear -- the most destructive form of internal structural stress that exists.

Vibration (bees) and undulation (snake) are just the same principle of translated rotations, applied shear -- cutting and reaping, which are intimately connected and applied together -- just at different scales.

So desu.